Mandy Nolan

It seems content creators are running out of ideas to make cheap TV. It’s amazing what you can come up with when you lose your ethics! Here’s a few quick pitches: How about a show about chubby rich women trying to drop weight by living in Ethiopia with a malnourished family for six weeks? No?

We are hearing about long covid and the many complex health issues that people are facing, long after the virus has passed through their system. I knew about that, but what I didn’t know about was that men who get covid are six times more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction.

I love my bed. Right now, during the pandemic, I love my bed more than ever. It’s become what I look forward to most. Every night, it’s my end destination. It’s the place I know I am going. It’s the warm hug that restores me. These are stressful times. There is division. There is uncertainty. There is anger.

I have a friend who is a supervisor in a store that belongs to one of the big supermarket chains. She’s had a corporate career and these days enjoys a pretty cruisy role as a store supervisor. Well cruisy pre-pandemic. These days she’s a frontline worker in a war zone. The other day she went home and wept. That’s not something she ever does. It’s a covid cry. She says ‘people are screaming at me from both sides’. 

I am sick of talking about COVID, sick of it dominating everything I read or listen to. Sick of seeing people get angry in the post office. Sick of seeing angry guys punch people for freedom. I am sick of staying at home. Sick of listening to conspiracies, and politicians. Sick of covid conversation. So I’ve reflected on one major personal positive that has come out of this lockdown that I can share, and it would have to be my new love. My big supporter. My quiet achiever… my bum bag. 

Today I woke up profoundly aware that as a white woman I live in a country that affords me extreme privilege. While baristas and hairdressers take to our front lines as ‘freedom fighters’– getting shouty about the right to not wear a mask during a global pandemic – women in Afghanistan are waking up today wondering if the last 20 years was a dream.

As of this morning we have found out that a man has tested positive to COVID-19. He was taken to Lismore Hospital by the police. He was active in the community, as were his two teenage sons, for five days. He went to places in Ballina, Byron, Lismore and Casino.

Like most people I know alcoholism is in my genes. My father was an alcoholic. He drove drunk into another car, killed himself and an innocent man. He was 30. I’m 53.

To live in a caring community might sometimes come at the cost of small individual liberties – like wearing a mask in the post office for ten minutes while you complete your transaction.

When I walk the streets of my town I feel this. I feel the divide. I watch the masked mingle with the ‘medically exempt’. There’s an unspoken agitation. A sense of ‘them’ and ‘us’. My town is no longer a place of love and acceptance. It is not a place of compassion and kindness. There is an undercurrent of distrust, suspicion and potential violence. We are being taken.

There is a dinner party game where you are asked who you would invite living or dead. I think I would have a dinner party at Margaret Olley’s house. With Marie Kondo. Just the two of them. I want to see how Ms Kondo copes with Ms Olley’s intensely populated surfaces. I think she would get very drunk. Margaret certainly would. I want to see how the Queen of decluttering mixes it up with the Queen of cluttering.

Sometimes I wonder why people seem to have stopped caring about climate change. Is it because it’s too big? Is it because we have a Prime Minister who is in a dirty love triangle with coal and gas? Or is it the convenience of the flushing toilet?

As the Entertainment Editor I have interviewed some very interesting people. Like the multi-orgasmic man; a Dutch orgasm coach living in a yurt, and Tim (Pricasso) who paints with his penis. I have also interviewed musicians. Probably not quite as interesting as the aforementioned group, but whose stories and chats have formed a wonderful part of my week over the last two decades. I have had the privilege of talking to some of my heroes.

It seems that even in alternative communities, sexual politics haven’t really been that alternative. Patriarchal narrative reigns supreme. Men tend to be the ‘gurus’, and as it turns out, gurus still like their cock sucked. Generally, by young women.

Schools could become community learning hubs rather than giant cerebral supermarkets for growing brains. What if we created a system that fed and nourished our young, rather than shaming and penalising them?

I would have said that ours is a safe town. So how can a boy just vanish? There are theories of what happened – but until he is found, they are only that: theories.

A house without tea is not a home.

My dog died. I haven’t been able to write about it until now. It was a month ago, and he was old, but it was still unexpected, and it leaves you feeling a bit raw.

What is an influencer? It seems that we say the word, but most people over 35 don’t really have a clue what it means in the context of social media and brand marketing.

‘Byron’s dead’. That’s the statement that I often hear. Or ‘I never go there anymore it’s lost’ or ‘Byron died years ago’. It always makes me feel a bit sad and defensive. I have such a love for this place, although I curse it when I get stuck in snaking traffic at 8am on a weekday morning or I can’t find a park near where I am going.

Resilience is dead. The word has been overused. Some may say the word is no longer resilient. We broke it. It’s unfortunate because it was a really good word.